1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material having improved photographic performances, storage stability, fastness of a color image obtained, and image quality.
2. Description of the Related Art
In manufacturing silver halide color photographic light-sensitive materials, it is well-known to employ a technique of providing a light-absorption layer, such as a light-absorbing filter, which absorbs light of a particular wavelength for the purpose of preventing halations or adjusting the sensitivity. At present, most generally used are a technique of cutting off the intrinsic sensitivities of green- and red-sensitive emulsions by providing an yellow filter layer at a position closer to the support than the blue-sensitive layer and further from the support than the other color-sensitive layers, and a technique of providing an anti-halation layer on the side closer to the support than the light-sensitive emulsion layers for prevention of unnecessary light scattering. In these light absorption layers, colloidal fine silver grains are usually used from a practical point of view. The colloidal silver grains, however, have side effects such as creating fog harmful to the adjacent emulsion layer, increasing the amount of fog during the storage of the light sensitive material, and decreasing the desilverization speed, as known. It is conventionally necessary for prevention of the fog to add an anti-foggant as disclosed in JP-A-62-32460 or JP-A-1-219743, or to introduce an interlayer mainly consisting of gelatine between the yellow filter layer and emulsion layer. Addition of an anti-foggant also creates the problem of decreasing the sensitivity, and introduction of the interlayer increases the thickness of the emulsion layer, lowering the sharpness and increasing the number of layers applied to raise a production cost.
In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, it has been attempted to use an organic dye in place of colloidal silver for the filter layer, and such a technique is described in patents as will be described later. Harmful fog can be removed by using the dye; however, again, use of the dye entails side effects such as increment of D.sub.min due to a poor discoloring from the light-sensitive material, leaving unnecessary absorption after processing, and as variance of the photographic properties caused by diffusion of the dye into other layers during storage due to insufficient fixation of the dye to a particular layer to which the dye was added. Therefore, many efforts have been made to obtain a material which satisfies both performances, namely, discoloring property of dye, and fixation thereof to a particular layer.
For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,548,564; 4,124,386 and 3,625,694 disclose techniques wherein a hydrophilic polymer having a charge opposite to dissociated anionic dye is provided, as a mordant, to co-exist with the dye in one layer, and the dye is localized in the layer by interaction of the polymer with the dye molecule.
Techniques for coloring a particular layer by use of a solid dye material insoluble in water, are disclosed in, for example, JP-A-56-12639, JP-A-55-155350, JP-A-55-155351, JP-A-63-27838, JP-A-63-197943, European Patents 15,601; 274,723; 276,566 and 299,435, and International Patent 88/04794. With the dye used in each of these patents, the desilverization speed can be increased without degrading the photographic properties; however, the desilverization speed achieved is still at an insufficient level, and there have been needs of the technique for further shortening the desilverization time.
Dye materials similar to that used in the present invention are disclosed in, for example, JP-A-63-64044, JP-A-1-196040, and JP-A-3-167546.
The dye materials disclosed in the above Patent Applications are not inactive in terms of photographic chemistry, and have been found to increase an amount of fog, and accordingly deteriorate the sensitivity when the light-sensitive material is stored for a long time. Further, these materials are not good in decoloring, and create color residue, or degrade the color-image fastness.
On the other hand, recently, the color-image fastness of silver halide color photographic light-sensitive materials have remarkably improved. Generally used is a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material containing three types of color couplers which form yellow, magenta, and cyan dyes when coupled with an oxidized form of an aromatic primary amine color developing agent.
Of those mentioned above, benzoyl-type and pivaloylacetoanilide-type yellow couplers are known as yellow couplers. A great attention have been paid to the malondianilide-type yellow coupler disclosed in European Patent 447,920A, and the cycloalkanecarbonyl-type yellow coupler disclosed in European Patent 447,969A, in particular, since the formed dye of each of these couplers has a high molar extinction coefficient, and the color image thereof is fast with respect to humidity and heat.
However, it was found that introduction of the malondianilide-type yellow coupler and the cycloalkanecarbonyl-type yellow coupler increases the amount of fog more than that with a benzoyl- or pivaloyl-type yellow coupler, over a long period of time of storage. After many studies, it was further found that such an increase in the amount of fog is particularly remarkable in the case where the colloidal silver is used as a light absorption layer. The amount of fog can be decreased by adding a large amount of the anti-foggant mentioned above or the like, or by introducing an interlayer mainly consisting of gelatine; however this technique entails side effects such as variation of the sensitivity and degradation of the sharpness.
In connection with a malondianilide-type yellow coupler similar to that of the invention, French Patent 1,558,452, for example, discloses a so-called oxygen atom dissociation type coupler mainly consisting of a diffusion type, in which the coupling active site has a group which splits off via oxygen atom.
JP-A-1-250950 discloses a yellow coupler as a specific compound example.
Meanwhile, in connection with a malondianilide-type coupler similar to that of the invention, those which release development inhibiting compounds are disclosed as functional couplers in JP-A-52-696624, JP-A-52-82424, JP-A-57-151944, JP-A-2-250053, and the above-mentioned European Patent Application No. 447,920. However, neither of JP-A-52-82424 or JP-A-57-151944 disclose a specific compound, nor does JP-A-52-696624 states a specific advantage obtained by the coupler.
Although some of the couplers disclosed in these documents exhibit improved color-forming property, color image fastness, and color reproduction, a demand for further improvement is strong. Further, regarding the development inhibiting compound-releasing coupler, there is a demand for further enhancement of the image improvement effect.